<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>You don’t understand, we don’t hold hands. by comradeartemis</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27051136">You don’t understand, we don’t hold hands.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/comradeartemis/pseuds/comradeartemis'>comradeartemis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Jester Lavorre &amp; Caleb Widogast Friendship, M/M, Matchmaker Frumpkin (Critical Role), Meet-Cute, Partially a not!fic, What’s canon never heard of it, Zoom calls, they’re both teachers!, very silly things</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:02:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,435</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27051136</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/comradeartemis/pseuds/comradeartemis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Teaching, Zoom Calls, and Frumpkin, ever the matchmaker.</p><p>(Teen and up for me swearing like a clown, but nothin else :)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>211</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You don’t understand, we don’t hold hands.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Oh my god I’m so sorry. Entirely based off this tweet https://twitter.com/jessie_hewitt/status/1315803914818646017?s=21 and written at midnight. </p><p>Title from Millions by Gerard Way, even if this totally isn’t a ‘song lyric title’ kind of fic.</p><p>Enjoy! I think!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Online lessons suck. They suck a <em>lot</em>. From the first few, riddled with sound problems, and connection issues, and ‘can you hear me?’s, and unmuted chatter, and unprepared teachers, to now, still riddled with every damn problem under the sun. And worst of all? People get to see into your goddamned house. Curating that two metre square to look as good as possible is an art form. Enough books to look well read, but not too many as to look pretentious. Art, maybe, but nothing too tasteless or tacky. Perhaps a window, but that would throw off the lighting and- well. It’s difficult. It’s made even worse with pets too, something Caleb became acutely aware of when Frumpkin started causing problems.</p><p>Frumpkin, bless him, was not a quiet cat, and never had been. As a kitten, he gave Caleb endless issues, determined to ‘help’ him study (usually by scratching Caleb's calves while he was reading), or wailing if he was locked out of the room. He was affectionate, yes, but fucking loud. This was still true, long into his adult life. Complaining incredibly vocally whenever Caleb had to shut him out for any reason; one of Fjord’s visits, or when he started inviting Essek over and didn’t want a large Bengal planting itself anywhere it shouldn’t be, or when he was desperately trying to cook with Caduceus and Jester and somehow ingredients kept going missing - though to be fair, Jester may have been eating ingredients, but the point still stands. Frumpkin is loud, and affectionate.</p><p>This became a problem with online lessons in a way it just hadn’t before. During class, Frumpkin would often sneak into Caleb’s lap, cause him to lose his train of thought for a second, absentmindly coo a little, and give Frumpkin the loving head scratches he was after. Students noticed obviously, and would ask their distracted English teacher to show Frumpkin off. He obliged, of course, and dangling Frumpkin in front of his shitty little laptop webcam, stacked high on Shakespeare and Orwell, became a regular occurrence in lessons. Caleb saw no harm in it, it kept students engaged with the lesson (to an extent), and would regularly result in students showing off their cats too, with a tabby kitten and a particularly elegant sphinx being his favourites. What Caleb hadn’t considered, was Essek.</p><p>In more ways than one, to be fair. In a broader sense, Caleb had never considered the possibility of working at the same school as his partner, or even having a partner in the first place. When he was younger, he’d had his fair share of awful workplace flings. Nothing serious, but enough to make things awfully awkward, and certainly enough to make Caleb swear off workplace romance for life.</p><p>Again, until Essek.</p><p>To be fair, they hadn’t met <em>in</em> school. Caleb met Essek through mutual friends. Jester, specifically, who had sworn blind that the two would get along “like a house on fire,” which had been her exact working, before she clapped one blue hand over her mouth and whined out a “<em>sorry Caleb!</em>” Poorly considered metaphor aside, she’d been right, as she always was. Jester had invited them all out for a local gig, not usually Caleb's thing, but it was <em>Yasha’s</em> gig, and Jester had been so damn eager, so he really couldn’t say no, and besides “my friend, the one who’s a teacher too? He’ll be there!”</p><p>“Essek?”</p><p>“Yeah that one! He’s staying down here for a week, it’s so amazing,” Caleb made a noise of noncommittal agreement, somewhere between an <em>oh, really?</em> and an <em>oh, really, no thank you</em>, which Jester, ever the optimist, had taken as a yes. So Caleb met Essek at Yasha’s gig, in small little venue with paved floors, a low ceiling, and a tiny bar pushed up against the far wall. They’d instantly hit it off, which was a surprise to absolutely nobody, and quickly went and took a seat on the benches outside to talk <em>properly</em>. Conversation had slid so easily from work, to hobbies, to personal lives, that before Caleb even realised, he was talking about the fire. Essek was so open, no sense of pity or condemnation, just listening to Caleb speak about his childhood home going up in smoke, memories and family with it, and how painful it had all been. Essek didn’t say a word, just listened, and held out a tissue when Caleb started to cry. It wasn’t a typical first date, but neither of them were particularly typical people. </p><p>Essek had been living and working out in Rosohna, far from the bright lights of Rexxentrum where Caleb was based, but they made it work. After Essek finished his stay, they made long distance work for a while, before a job opened up in Rexxentrum, same school as Caleb. It was a senior position, which made it all the more worth it, but Caleb had the sense that Essek would’ve taken a damn TA job just to move closer. And so, they began working at the same school.</p><p>Caleb insisted that they should keep their relationship on the down low. Essek agreed without hesitation. Students knowing about teachers personal lives, especially relationships, could get messy, and as much as they had no plans on separating, it would all be easier to just say nothing. Caleb also got a kick out of playing spies, sneaking around for kisses at lunchtime, leaving school in separate cars, keeping their names entirely separate, it was all a little bit exciting. For all their students knew, Mr Widogast and Mr Thelyss were just great friends, or possibly rivals, and there was nothing else to it.</p><p>Until Frumpkin, and online lessons. That’s the other, much more pressing issue with Essek that Caleb wasn’t anticipating. Frumpkin <em>loves</em> Essek. Essek, who was <em>also</em> teaching online lessons, and who <em>also</em> had no choice but to let Frumpkin in the room, lest he face the incredibly loud wrath of the feline. Essek, who <em>wasn’t thinking either,</em> and just let Frumpkin wander clearly in eyeshot of all of his students. <em>Essek</em>, who- “Sir, do you have a cat?”</p><p>Essek paused. “Yes.”</p><p>The student, Essek checked the names, Vesper, continued. “What’s his name sir?”</p><p>Essek paused again, before reluctantly answering, “Frumpkin.” Before adding, “I didn’t name him.”</p><p>All his students seemed invested now, if not for the cat,but for the opportunity of derailing the lesson for a little while. Vesper continued to lead the interrogation. “Who named him then?”</p><p>Aye. As Caleb would say. There’s the rub. “My partner did. Before we met,” seemed safe enough. His partner could be anyone, and it could’ve been- “it’s just, sir,” Vesper’s eyes betrayed what she knew, “Mr Widogast has the same cat.”</p><p>
  <em>Oh. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Shit. </em>
</p><p>Essek utterly froze. “Well,” he said, with absolutely no conviction at all, “you must be mistaken. Many cats look alike, Miss De Rolo.”</p><p>“Well yeah, but they’re not all called Frumpkin though.” Essek was cast adrift in the middle of the ocean. His life jacket was rapidly deflating. And Vesper Elania De Rolo was holding the <em>fucking pin</em>.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, how do <em>you</em> know Mr Widogast’s cat is called Frumpkin?” Stupid question. Essek already knew the answer. He never shuts-</p><p>“He never shuts up about him sir. And now I’m thinking about it, he does often mention his <em>partner</em> in his stories. Like that time Frumpkin snuck into <em>your</em> bag and-“</p><p>“Yes that’s quite enough of that<em>.</em> Now this has all been <em>very</em> fun, but can we please get back on topic?” Essek said, again, somehow feeling the least like a professional he ever had in his damn life.</p><p>The rest of the lesson flew by, uneventful, but haunted by Vesper De Rolo’s self satisfied smirk, until Essek could end the damn thing and have a fucking lie down. He took Frumpkin with him, collapsing on the couch in their living room, and placing the cat on his chest, giving Frumpkin the very special chin scratches he loves. “Everything ok?” Caleb calls from the other room, sleeves rolled up and hands firmly in the dishes.</p><p>“Absolutely not. I think we can get married now, though, if you want to take my name. Or I take yours. Or double barrel it,”</p><p>An incredibly soapy and dishevelled Caleb pokes his head round the kitchen door, holding a glass still covered in suds. “<em>Was</em>?”</p><p>Essek looks at him, with all the melodrama he can muster, and honest to god whines, “it was fucking Frumpkin. Students. Vesper. They <em>know</em>,”</p><p>There is a brief pause, a moment of hesitation, then Caleb drops the glass.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>